Ambient temperature nanoelectrospray ion mobility detector for high performance liquid chromatography in determining amines

A nanoelectrospray ionization ion mobility spectrometer (nanoESI-IMS) working at ambient pressure and ambient temperature was developed as a detector of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to achieve sensitive detection of amines with no derivatization and meanwhile provide another dimension of separation. The easier desolvation property of the charged droplets formed in nanoESI source enabled complete desolvation of the product ions of sixteen amines and drugs using the nanoESI-IMS at ambient temperature. Working at ambient temperature was good for suppressing the dissociation of thermal volatile ions, such as only the proton adducted molecular ions were observed for morphine in the nanoESI-IMS. Besides, the resolving power of the nanoESI-IMS also showed an increasing tendency as lowering the working temperature, an increment of 19 percent and 10 percent was observed for diethylamine and triethylamine as the temperature dropped from 92 °C to 32 °C. The resolving power of the nanoESI-IMS at 32 °C for the 16 tested compounds was amid 33-44. With the nanoESI-IMS coupled to HPLC, a six-compound mixture including isomers was successfully separated and detected without any derivatization. And linear response ranges of 1 to 20, 0.5 to 20, and 0.8 to 20 μg ml−1 and limits of detection of 0.25, 0.15, and 0.17 μg ml−1 for triethylamine, diethylamine, and butylamine, respectively, were obtained with the hyphenated system. These results showed the excellent performance of the two-dimensional separation and detection method in direct qualitative and quantitative analyses of amines.